


The Song of Seven Swords

by theCrowe



Series: Mercenary Group - K7 [2]
Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior
Genre: Gen, Kentares, Poetry, alliterative verse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-25 22:55:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13222962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theCrowe/pseuds/theCrowe
Summary: Oral traditions and Folklore will often preserve what official histories omit. This song is one such evidence. A transcript of a folk tale from a culture descended of survivors of the Massacre of Kentares still surviving on a Federated Suns planet which tells of a group of DCMS defectors who aided them in their flight.





	The Song of Seven Swords

Excerpt from Songs of Kentares, an Oral History.   
Edited by Adept IX tau C. Lévi-Strauss  
published by Royal Hasek Press 2905   
used by permission of Robinson Archival Libraries

 

The Song of Seven Swords

When the rivers ran red and the rains ever wept  
For the men by the million the maids and the babes  
So foully murdered by the fatherless dragon

We bolted like bucks my brother and I  
Pursued through the pines by powerful beasts  
Our father, a farmer our flight had sore won 

Then chanced we upon a champion beast  
A six headed serpent in sorrowful mood  
All sickened of slaying and stricken with shame

Not far through the forest the footfalls thundered  
A bloodthirsty beast the brothers pursuing   
Hunting and howling hungry for flesh

Then stirred the serpent striving for honour  
A mighty and monstrous master of battle  
He challenged the charnel champion of death

Cursing the cur for a craven and coward  
The master with murderous might did prevail  
Though battered and broken the battle hard won

My brother believing our battles were finished  
Knelt on his knees a novena to say  
Honouring our avengers ere he opened his eyes.

The master there marked a man of high spirit  
Though a boy yet un-bearded he bore a king’s heart   
As lord he would be to these leaderless few

Six were the swords surrounding him kneeling  
held out in the hands and the heart of the serpent  
to the farmer’s son fealty and friendship they swore

Trusting their troth in truth he arose  
and mounting the master we made our departure  
to our home in the hills with new hope for the people

In the village we vouched for the valorous serpent  
who promised the people protection in kind  
to fight for their freedom from the fatherless dragon

Though farmer he fought our father avenging  
His ploughshare he pounded producing a sword  
Mounted amongst them making them seven

The seven did serve as the strength of the people  
To waylay the whelps of the war-hungry dragon  
Such beasts they beheaded and bore their heads home

They made them a mound in the mouth of their valley  
A hundred such horrible heads they piled high  
Declaring they dared the dragon defy

In fury the fatherless felt this affliction  
Though a hundred beheaded he held no account  
His sovereignty suffered no such affront 

Now hunted the harder their hearts grew the bolder  
Their spirits the stronger as strength it did wane  
As the net drew the nearer still ne’er did they falter

Ere long at the last no longer they wandered   
But stood in the strength of that stoic resolve  
To fight to the falling in defence of the free 

Shoulder to shoulder they shone in the starlight  
Seven swords swearing to sell their lives dearly  
Resisting the rush of the ravening hoard.

The beasts attacked baying for blood and for sport  
As they met at the mound in the mouth of the valley  
While the people, protected took paths to escape

Then fell a Thunderbolt Thor’s own right hand  
Fierce as a furnace and flashing with lightning  
A dirge and a pyre for the dead ere the dawning

With feet all aflame a Phoenix rose skyward  
It hung in the heavens hell-fire unleashing  
Then fell in a fury of fire and death

An Archer amongst them spent arrowless charging  
With only his fist to attack and avenge  
Lay at last locked with his last lifeless foe

A hoary old veterain Hunched but yet vital  
Heaved at the heart of a hellion beast  
All energy sacrificed utterly spent

In the midst of the maelstrom where men were but mice   
A Falcon there hunted fierce spirit fighting  
‘til weakened and waning was wing and was claw

Then spake he The Master “Now speed ye my Lord,  
In charging I’ll chop ye a chance for your saving  
To provide you a place with your people departing.”

“Nay!” did he answer “I’ll never away!  
Not while there be weapons and wyrms still to slay  
My kin are right keen and may cut their own way.”

“But long will they labour many leagues to the harbour  
They need you now nigh navigating their way.  
Fall not like us fools but fly to their succour!”

“the Goodmen have they to gird and to guide them  
And a council of elders to care and coerce  
A measure of minutes maybe I might win them.”

“A farmer am I and a full blooded warrior  
What field might I furrow in the fathomless deeps?  
What foe might I fight so far from my home?”

So the boy and the Master Both yet undefeated  
Back to back battled the beasts all surrounding  
The dead and the dying and daemons unnumbered

The Mound they ascended to make there their last stand  
Though fortune and fire and fiends were against them  
No warrior could weather so wicked a storm

So thick was the throng that thrust at the twain  
That soon they were swamped and swallowed within  
then torn from atop and trampled beneath them

They perishing paid for our pass to the harbour  
and boarding on boats we were bourn far way  
to worthily live as the ones who were saved

We remnant here ransomed remember our brothers  
and fathers and mother who fell in the mire  
Our husbands and a hundred more heart-dear relations

Our families remaining in farms left abandoned  
Our sisters and sons we in sorrow recall  
Our wives and our daughters in weeping we mourn them


End file.
